COLUMN: Michigan’s commitment to school choice makes a big difference for our kids

It’s a new year in Lansing and lawmakers are busy once again proposing bills, debating hot topics and, most importantly to parents like us, talking about how to make sure every Michigan child gets the best possible education.

Whether its discussion over the spending figures Governor Snyder cited in his state of the state speech, talk about giving schools letter grades or the debate surrounding common core education standards, public education remains the hot topic. And with good reason; although different people have different ideas on how to get there, we all want the best for our kids and for students across the state.

It is fitting then that this week families across the country are observing National School Choice Week and taking stock of both how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go to ensure every child receives a high quality education.

It was two decades ago now that lawmakers in Lansing enacted Michigan’s Charter School law, giving parents and students options when it came to their public schools and hundreds of thousands of families are better off because of their courage.

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We know. Ours is one of them.

We recently made the decision to pursue a charter public school education for our four children, moving them out of our local traditional public school that simply wasn’t meeting their needs, and enrolling them in the Michigan Virtual Charter Academy, a public charter school that uses technology and one-on-one time between teachers and students to literally bring the lesson plan home for our kids.

And we couldn’t be more excited about the experience and the world class education they are receiving — or about the ability to leave behind the distractions and negative environment that was holding them back at their previous school.

Before making the switch to a charter public school, our children dealt with serious challenges in their traditional public school — bullying, profane and often sexually charged language and, at times, uncontrolled classrooms — that were holding our children back in the classroom and weighing on them emotionally in ways that young children simply shouldn’t have to accept as a condition of receiving an education. While we loved our children’s’ public school teachers, all it took was one disruptive child to demand all of the teachers focus, attention, and energy for the day, drawing from our child’s learning experience.

Their new public charter school has been a refreshing change of pace and all four of our children are now thriving. While much of their learning is online, when they have had a math concept with which they are struggling, they have been able to directly contact their teacher for up to an hour of one-on-one instruction. This one-on-one instruction is something they would never receive in a traditional public school.

With four children, we recognize that each child learns in an individual way. Some learn visually, some thrive on vocal interaction, and some work very well independently – all within our own household. Having the ability to choose a school that worked best for our kids has made all of the difference in the world, and Michigan’s commitment to school choice these last 20 years has improved the lives and educations of hundreds of thousands of other kids just like ours.

That makes Governor Snyder and lawmakers’ continued commitment to school choice something truly worth celebrating.

Brian and Hollie Jackson are metro-area parents of four and members of the Michigan Chapter of PublicSchoolOptions.org.